


Beastly (from the Eastly)

by beaubete



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 14:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13977222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: A snowstorm brings the country to a grinding halt, and the only solution is (...well).





	Beastly (from the Eastly)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timetospy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetospy/gifts).



> A bonus ficlet based on my experience a few weeks ago with The Beast from the East. Mostly silliness and fluff.

The first few flakes lent the city a kind of magic, an air that things weren’t quite real.  It wasn’t so much that London didn’t get snow as it was that London didn’t get  _ snow _ .  London didn’t get these fat, swirling clumps of driving snow that danced on the air with surprising grace despite their frankly daunting size.  There had been a snow the day before, a little bit of ice in the air that had stopped almost as quickly as it had started, just barely enough for Todd to announce to the pod that it was  _ snowing  _ and everyone to rush out of their subbasement lair to stand in awe like fish gawping at flakes drifting from above.  Yes. That first day had been ordinary, and the second day’s snow that could hardly be called “flakes” so much as “clusters” had been mesmerising.

No, it was the continued snow that was the problem, the way the stuff had begun to pile in the corners of the yard like litter, the way it was constantly, constantly underfoot and constantly, constantly slick enough to threaten to take his feet out from under him that was currently causing Q’s consternation.  Not all of the city had ground to a staggering halt, but enough had to confound and frustrate him, and even further north there were reports of auto accidents, cars sliding off the roads and a thick red band of weather advisory shielding much of the parts of the country Q thought of vaguely as “the North”. A centimetre or so, yes, that was enough to grant a lovely wintry mien to the countryside.  Three centimetres and Q was almost ready to pull his hair out.

“I can’t go anywhere,” Q railed, a tirade that seemed to hit Bond’s ear as both familiar and fond, if the expression on his face as he lipped the edge of his coffee cup was anything to go by, “without falling on my arse.”

“It’s no one’s fault but yours if the soles of your shoes are bald as eggs,” Bond reminded him, just as he had when Q had made the same complaint two hours ago.  Just as then, Q ignored the chiding blithely, though the difference now was that he was not currently cocooned against the winter’s chill and he was fairly certain Bond could see the two-fingered salute without the duvet in the way.  It didn’t matter at all that Bond’s precise wording was lifted directly from Q’s complaints yesterday—Bond could shut his fat face.

“The man at the corner shop has covered the pavement with ice,” Q continued.  Bond made a noncommittal noise into his coffee. “You should kill him.” It was a plausible suggestion; the man had threatened the life of a senior executive of MI-6, after all.  Bond’s hum of agreement was unimpressed.

“Yes, he overcharges for eggs.”  Not quite Q’s point, but he would defer to Bond in his reasons for ending someone.  “But no. Paperwork.”

“I’ll fill it out myself,” Q offered, which startled Bond enough to draw his eyes from the newspaper before him.  It was an old newspaper, anyway—Q hadn’t been bothered to make the trek to the shops, and Bond had been content to find other ways to spend a sleepy, snowy morning—Anyway, Q thought, flushing as he pulled his sleeves over his hands.

“Bloodthirsty,” Bond accused, and that damnable grin was peeking in from the corner of his mouth again.

This obviously wasn’t going to go anywhere.  Q sighed dramatically, throwing himself at the couch; there was a yowling mew of distaste as Blue shot out from beneath the groaning springs to perch on the arm of Bond’s chair.  She groomed a paw superciliously and even permitted Bond a generous scratch behind her ears because she was a filthy traitor. Q’s next sigh was even more dramatic.

“I need some more paraffin for the mini melter,” he explained, and it certainly wasn’t a whine, no matter what Bond’s expression said.

“So go get it.”

“I will fall.  And die.”

“Then call a taxicab.”

Q supposed it all sounded very sensible when you were Double Oh Seven and used to life-threatening situations before tea on a Thursday, but for normal folk, the suggestion didn’t even merit the filthy look he sent Bond’s way.  “Someone could bring it to me, if they were stupid enough to risk it.”

“Then pay someone to do it for you, Q.  It isn’t that difficult.”

Humn.  A different tactic, then.  “Blowjob?” It was a judicious offer, though Q would benefit both in the paying and the payment.

Bond snorted, which wasn’t a typical response to Q offering a cock-sucking.  Instead, Bond turned the page deliberately. “Bond—James—would you—”

“I’m having my coffee, Q, and while I’m happy to take you back to bed and fuck you until you stop whinging once that’s done—again, I might add—I’m not going out on my day off to fetch you flammables that you can use when bored to set the house alight.  Again, I might add.”

Well.  When put like that!  Q huffed, crossing his arms.  Ask a little favour and offer one in return—albeit a sexual favour, which was nearly as valuable as fetching things to tinker with, in Q’s book—and get an answer.  He threw himself around a bit, surly at first and then pouting and then finally just to see that fond smile on Bond’s face as he turned the pages of his reread newspaper.  

It was after tea, and after, specifically, Bond snogged him against the edge of the counter until he nearly forgot what he’d been about all day, that the thought occurred to him.  At first he was a bit offended that Bond hadn’t seemed to notice he’d disappeared into his workshop, but then there was lamp oil and reserve tanks and other lovely things to distract him.  Eventually it was dark, late enough for Bond to rap at the door, and Q knew that if he lingered Bond would come inside to fetch him. No matter. It would work better in the morning, anyway.

:: 

In the end, he nearly got outside with the thing before Bond realized; he couldn’t be particularly surprised when Bond stopped him at the door, sweeping Q’s gadget from his hand as he whirled him around and back into the house.

“Flamethrower.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Effective.”

“No.”

Q’s frown was sour.  “Since when are you not okay with collateral damage?”

“Since it was Mrs. Lowry’s begonias you were trying to set on fire,” Bond clarified.  It took Q a moment to agree begrudgingly. Bond’s laugh was affectionate, paired with a low chuckle.  “It will be gone in a day or two. I promise you, it will.”

He was right, of course.  The morning broke calm and grey; not even birdsong broke the morning’s slow peace.  The snow is gone, of course. The flamethrower in the garden bushes—

“Mother _ fucker _ .”


End file.
